Thread by @hradzka

It’s been one of those days and folks could use a break from it all

So how about a story of absolute badassery that has something for everyone

It is from one of my favorite books to keep in a place one occasionally sits with time to spare

Paul Kirchner’s THE DEADLIEST MEN

Kirchner, an associate of the late Col. Jeff Cooper (he provided illustrations for some of Cooper’s books), tells many stories of deadly people — not all of them men — from a variety of backgrounds, from Jim Bowie to Mgobozi to La Maupin.

I will share the story of Jean-Louis.

Jean-Louis was a mixed-race Haitian, and in 1795 (with Haiti and indeed the whole island of Hispaniola in just *a wee bit of turmoil*) the eleven-year-old orphan took advantage of an opportunity to get the hell out & head to France, which he did by enlisting in the 32d Regiment.

The 32d Regiment's colonel wasn't sure what to do with his new charge, who wasn't just brown, but small (Jean-Louis would grow up to be a confirmed manlet). So the shrugged and sent him to the regiment's fencing school.

Cue the Wheel of Pain montage.

Because the maitre d'armes saw something in the little scrapper who worked harder than anybody else in the fencing hall. So he worked him harder. Gave him more lessons.

Which is how Jean-Louis became the youngest fencer ever to pass the exam for maitre d'armes.

Now, Kirchner notes, French fencing of the era tended to be stiff, somewhat formal. The stereotype was that French fencers either got sticks up their ass, or became show-offs whose flourishes looked great but got them killed.

Jean-Louis eschewed both approaches for simplicity.

A contemporary described "the regularity, even in the most unforeseen circumstances, of all his movements, which followed each other like the rings of a chain."

As you might imagine, Jean-Louis fought in public demonstrations a lot.

At one demonstration, a spectator opined that Jean-Louis wouldn't last long in a real fight. Jean-Louis ignored it.

The man continued to heckle. Jean-Louis asked if he was talking about him. The man allowed as how he was.

Jean-Louis asked him if he meant to force a duel.

The heckler replied that swords weren't for the hands of [insert racial slur here] and Jean-Louis should keep to his foil.

To which Jean-Louis said, "Okay."

They would fight the next day. The heckler would have his sword.

Jean-Louis would use a blunt foil.

The next morning, they dueled.

Jean-Louis, with a foil against a sword, parried every attack, wore his man down... and then lashed the heckler across the face with the *edge* of the foil.

Laying his face wide open, scarring him for life.

Jean-Louis then went on to fight in the Napoleonic Wars, but Kirchner skips over his adventures there...

...because neither facing a sword armed only with a foil, nor fighting in 30 battles under Napoleon Bonaparte, were Jean-Louis's most badass moment.

This was:

In 1814, the 30-year-old Jean-Louis was in Madrid with the 32d Regiment. Napoleon's army contained multiple nationalities, and as you might expect they didn't all get along.

There was a massive drunken brawl between the 32d Regiment and the 1st Regiment, who were Italians.

As a result, the 32d and the 1st were at one each other's throats constantly. Order had to be restored.

And what the French army decided on was the wildest scheme ever heard outside of a 1970s martial-arts film.

They would hold... A FENCING TOURNAMENT.

Specifically, they would take both regiments -- we're talking *10,000 men here* out to a plain outside the city where an accident of geology provided natural elevation in the middle... a dueling platform, if you will.

Each regiment would provide 15 champions. One would win all.

But this was not a ladder tournament. You didn't fight one guy, then have a break, then face a winner of another match.

Oh no.

In this tournament, a man fought until he was wounded or killed.

If your side picked you to go in first, you'd better be great at fencing and better at cardio... because the only way you were coming out of that match whole was to beat *the fifteen greatest champions the other regiment had to offer.*

IN A ROW.

And it wasn't just a French regiment vs. Italian regiment rivalry -- no, this was French vs. Italian *fencing.*

French fencing was mechanical, logical, formalistic. Italian fencing, as the French stereotype had it, was rowdy, passionate -- and dedicated to the kill.

You know Jean-Louis went in first.

His opponent was the Florentine Italian fencing master Giacomo Ferrari.

They faced each other shirtless -- no possibility of armor, nothing to brush aside a thrust.

Their first exchange was lengthy, and Jean-Louis wounded Ferrari.

In the second exchange, he killed him.

Good news: now Jean-Louis had only 14 opponents to go.

The bad news: *now all of them wanted revenge.*

Jean-Louis killed the second man, too.

The third man dropped unconscious after Jean-Louis stabbed him in the chest.

And the fourth...

And the fifth...

And the sixth...

Cut to: an unimaginable *forty minutes* of fencing to the death later.

Every single Italian has been killed or maimed or disabled or otherwise manhandled by Jean-Louis.

Except two, whom Kirchner describes as "pale but resolved" as they awaited their turn in the meat grinder.

The colonel of the 32d, Jean-Louis's own regiment, is the one who cracks.

COLONEL. "You've defended the regiment's honor. And your comrades' honor. And my honor. But you have fought *thirteen duels for your life* in a row, and I can't in good conscience ask for more."

Jean-Louis, the Colonel insisted, had to withdraw. If the other guys wanted to keep fighting, okay, that was up to them, but my GOD, Jean-Louis, *just sit down.*

Jean-Louis insisted, no, look, I've *got this.*

Being a Haitian -- and a Frenchman -- Jean-Louis gave a whole short speech about how he could not leave his post -- "I shall fight as long as I can hold my weapon!"

And he made, uncharacteristically for Jean-Louis, a flourish.

Which cut his friend slightly on the leg.

Jean-Louis was distraught -- only one man in his whole regiment had been wounded in the tournament -- and he had done it!

THE COLONEL. "WELL CLEARLY THIS IS OBVIOUSLY AN OMEN AND YOU SHOULD LISTEN TO ME RIGHT NOW, YOU TRUST MY JUDGMENT IN HONOR DON'T YOU"

Jean-Louis allowed as to how he did trust his colonel's judgment in honor, and the colonel told him to drop his sword and go extend a hand to the 1st Regiment. "They cannot come to *you!*"

Jean-Louis dropped his sword, and went to the Italians, and clasped their hands.

Up went the cheers:
"Vive Jean-Louis!"
"Vive the 32d Regiment!"
"Vive the First! We are but one family! Vive l'armee!"

And they were one again.

Jean-Louis received the Legion of Honor and the Medaille de St. Helene.

He married and had a daughter (whom he trained, and whom Kirchner reports became "the most celebrated swordswoman of her time," though he annoyingly doesn't report what her name was). She married nobility.

Jean-Louis retired from the army at 65, but continued to teach fencing, even after he became blind from cataracts. He died in 1865, aged 80 years old.

And there you have a story of bad-assery.

/fin